Maintenance is regularly performed on aircraft for repair, update, or replacement of aircraft parts to keep the aircraft in a safe condition for in-service operation. Performing maintenance has a direct effect on the in-service availability of aircraft, with it generally being desirable to reduce or minimize aircraft downtime during maintenance in which the aircraft is out of service. However, reducing or minimizing aircraft downtime during maintenance is a complicated task involving multiple variables such as the age or in-service usage of the fleet of aircraft, the inventory of aircraft parts, the availability of facilities at the locations for performing maintenance on the fleet of aircraft, and the locations of the aircraft. The interplay of these variables makes reducing or minimizing aircraft downtime during maintenance challenging. For example, facilities may be available to perform maintenance for an aircraft at one location while the aircraft may be stationed at another faraway location.
Techniques exist for scheduling and performing maintenance according to schedules that account for at least some of the relevant variables. These existing methods are time consuming and provide no assessment and analysis regarding expected maintenance performance using maintenance schedules. These existing methods may not be able to reduce or minimize aircraft downtime during maintenance of a fleet of aircraft.
Therefore it would be desirable to have a system and method that take into account at least some of the issues discussed above, as well as other possible issues.